


Eldritch Terraformed

by jasperjorgen



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: I hate me, I haven't actually read catalyst soooo, M/M, Pining, Surveillance, Voyeurism, elitism, krennic kreepin, pre-canon i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 22:09:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9348593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasperjorgen/pseuds/jasperjorgen
Summary: Krennic witnesses a breakthrough moment of the Rebellion, he just doesn't realize.





	

The window of Galen Erso’s quarters on Eadu overlooks one of the planet’s characteristic eldritch terraformed valleys, enclosing upon the facility from both sides. When he’d arrived for the first time on this planet, Orson had thought it clever that the building’s shape evoked the mountains it was surrounded by, but now realizes it is  _ too  _ well disguised. Eadu’s nights are even darker than its dim and low-visibility days, and, despite a thin strip of guiding lights blinking on the runway as he pulls in, it feels as if disembarking from his shuttle is like clinging to the side of a mountain. 

 

He looks up, searching for Galen’s room, to where he could be overlooking the valley, but can’t tell if Galen’s awake, let alone even there. Light diminishes and disappears in the over-saturated atmosphere that’s more water than air. Miserable– if the man was more poetic, he’d say it was like tears, the rain. Lachrymose, overpowering, withering, grave. 

 

The one advantage, Orson supposes, of presiding over such an unglamorously dreary operation is the size of the crew. Thirty-six stormtroopers, six deathtroopers, three captains. Two mechanics, four technicians, usually between one and six pilots. Two lieutenants, eight engineers, and one director. Besides possessing the highest rank on the whole planet some days, he’s never been one for logistics and day-to-day operational work. After his meetings, he goes to the operations room, but, unfortunately, decides he has the time to stop at the surveillance console. 

 

He grasps his own wrist when he directs the monitor to Galen’s quarters, leaving the imprint of the inside seam of his glove.

 

Galen emerges from the bottom of the screen– About a third of the room is left outside the frame, a shortcoming that could be easily fixed by moving the camera to a corner, but out of decency, he supposes, the side with the bed and the refresher is omitted in from standard-layout quarters’ picture. Orson first noticed, though, several months ago that Galen switched his bed and desk, disappearing offscreen for hours at a time while he worked and sleeping with his head almost touching the glass, water streaming down the other side. He’s followed from his desk, then, by an unfamiliar figure: a dark-haired man topped with pilot’s goggles. Orson squints, frowns, clicks in closer: to his knowledge, the last person Galen invited to his room was Orson himself, several years ago. He never questioned Galen’s decision to never remarry; their station couldn’t really accommodate a spouse, despite his firm conviction that Galen was, and would always be, a man of the “marrying type.” Instead, he suspected that Galen’s upbringing in a somewhat less cosmopolitan world engendered his dislike of casual contact, and that despite everything he’d accomplished to overcome that upbringing, old habits die hard.

 

He’d never fault the man for that, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a bit archaic. And, though he’d never admit it, frustrating. 

 

Finally, the figure tilts his head up to meet Galen’s eyes (a gesture Orson knew would endear him, because it was the same sort of thing Lyra would do so they could stare deeply into each other’s eyes, or the like.) Now in view, Orson can recognize the face– the face! The face of a kyber cargo pilot, one who’s docked here at least a few times before–He sucks in a sharp breath, he remembers the first time that pilot caught his eye, a pilot with shiningly expressive eyes; a sweet, surprised smile; slim and intriguing even under sexless Imperial flight suits. His head had certainly turned but, of course, the pilot isn’t his type: not physically, but he is in fact drawn to accomplishment– to the majors, generals, admirals, always one step ahead. Even in his Brentaal Futures days were not-so-secret liaisons with every exam-topper and scholarship-winner with an adequate face or body; he loved eminence. Galen, on the other hand, latched himself onto Lyra– hapless, unassuming, Jedi-worshipping Lyra. 

 

At least Lyra was well educated, though, making it all the more puzzling why this pilot would be speaking so ardently to Galen– his hands are actually clasped, imploring silently. If Galen is actually going to righteously keep this one around, the Imperial education system is utterly broken for not permitting a contemporary of Galen’s past a year of flight training. Now unbearably curious, Orson puts on the headphones lying atop the console and opens the audio channel. At first the sound is staticky, but when it clears up:

 

“...please, anything, just touch me. Please, I never feel anything like when you–”

 

Orson shuts off the console in disgust, but about a minute later, he’s reconnecting. 

 

The feed resumes, to his disdain, when the pilot is stripping fervently like his clothes are soaked in acid. He practically jumps on the bed and starts slicking himself up–  _ What kind of person carries lube in his front pocket?  _ Orson thinks. He watches Galen remove his uniform and can’t help but feel that the man’s debasing himself. He should be a little ashamed, or at least enjoy the thrill of it when he’s climbing all over an  _ ingénu _ barely older than his daughter.

 

Orson himself never had any daughters, and as such never encounters this particular problem. 

 

“Sir?” says the pilot, shakily.

 

“Call me Galen,” he admonishes him quietly. Orson is totally, positively sickened _.  _

 

Orson cannot believe his eyes or ears when the two start actually going at it, unbelieveable. Galen isn’t an incredibly sizely man, this he knows, but that doesn’t stop this pilot from begging for it shamelessly. He jolts back onto Galen’s thrusts and gazes up at him with unfathomable devotion, reaching up to Galen’s neck while he pries his legs further apart, dripping with affection. Orson, for his part, feels slightly nauseous.

 

“Harder, oh Galen harder please.” Orson cringes.

 

But when Galen’s voice finally creeps into the feed, it’s low and reassuring and sounds like everything he wanted when he was fifteen. He teases the pilot lightly, but with a sort of reverence that makes him ache. When he stops and drops his forehead to the pilot’s chest, Orson increases the volume and hears him bite back a groan as he comes. Wildly, he thinks of deserting the operations room and going to those quarters  _ right now _ , expressing the elevator and using his rank cylinders to throw the door open. Lucky Lyra would slap her hand over her child’s eyes and despair privately over Galen’s ‘betrayal.’ But Orson was more dramatic, and pictures a spurned lover’s ‘crime of passion’: advancing upon the two like an avenger, shooting the pilot between the eyes, subjecting Galen to that criminal, passionate anger _. Only I know what you want, because I made you who you are.  _

 

Galen leans down to suck off the pilot, and Orson rips off the headset before he has to hear the raspy gasps like a diver’s surfacing for air. It’s bad enough that he must see it. Galen spits into a napkin and pulls the pilot up by the shoulders, embracing him and whispering something against his ear like the archaic ‘sweet nothings’ from classic films Orson doesn’t want to hear. Frowning, he puts the headphones back on, and hears the pilot reply “I will do anything for you, Galen,” with such an overflow of adoration that he’s taken aback by how much it sounds like he feels. 


End file.
